#16 Basic Conjugation, Plain/Diary Form
Welcome back, learners! Today we will begin to enter the area in which I started to get lost. Yeah, it’s going to be fun! So far it has been relatively easy but alas we can’t stay in this realm forever. Well, we could but that means our ability to communicate with others in Korean would be extremely limited. And that isn’t why we are here to learn, right?
So today we will begin with basic conjugation and tenses. Since that will be a long section in general, I have wondered on how to do that and I decided to split it up a bit instead of overwhelming you with everything at once. Since I follow the lesson plan at How to Study Korean, we will begin with a certain conjugation that is not (or rarely) used in speech, instead, it is used in writing of diaries, books, magazines, news and such when not writing/speaking to a specific audience. It is often called “Diary form” or “plain form”.
Tenses with general honorifics will come later, so if you are not interested in this part just skip over and wait for a little while until I get there.
It is used as informal speech (나 instead of 저)
The only parts conjugated are verbs and adjectives (including 이다)
Remember: Verb stem is dictionary form and dropping the final 다
Add directly to verb stem
~는다 if stem ends in consonant -> to eat: 먹다 -> 먹는다
~ㄴ다 if verb stem ends in vowel -> to learn: 배우다 -> 배운다
I understand that -> 나는 그것을 이해한다.
If conjugating adjectives in present tense Plain Form, don’t add anything, it’s already in present tense!
That street is long: 그 길은 길다.
Add directly to verb stem
~았다 if the last vowel is ㅗ or ㅏ (including ㅛ or ㅑ)
~었다 if the last vowel is anything but ㅗ, ㅏ, ㅛ or ㅑ
~였다 if the last syllable is 하 -> turns to 했다
Note: This is not if the stem ENDS in the vowel but based on the last vowel in the stem! For example, 먹다 does end with ㄱ but the last vowel is ㅓ
I closed the door -> 나는 문을 닫았다.
I studied Korean -> 나는 한국어를 공부했다.
And now we are getting a little complicated. As you see in the example of ~였다 sometimes the syllable changes in combination with certain vowels. That happens when the whole stem ends in a vowel. In those cases, 았다/었다 gets merged with the stem. That is also why 였다 with 하 turns to 했다. Here are the ways the merge happens:
아 + 아 -> 아 (가 + 았다 -> 갔다)
오 + 아 -> 와 (오 + 았다 -> 왔다)
우 + 어 -> 워 (배우 + 었다 -> 배웠다)
이 + 어 -> 여 (끼 + 었다 -> 꼈다)
어 + 어 -> 어 (나서 + 었다 -> 나섰다)
여 + 어 -> 여 (켜 + 었다 -> 켰다)
하 + 여 -> 해 (공부하 + 였다 -> 공부했다)
stems that end in ㅡ are more complicated and will be covered later when we talk about irregular verbs.
ㅑ,ㅠ,ㅔ, etc don’t have to be merged but you can
Examples:
would each both be correct
My uncle came to the store: 삼촌은 가게에 왔다.
I went to the museum: 나는 벅물관에 갔다.
Adjectives
Adjectives in past tense plain form are conjugated exactly the same as verbs (including merging)
That food was delicious: 그 음식은 맜있었다.
That street was long: 그 길은 길었다.
That man was handsome: 그 남자는 잘생겼다.
Add directly to the verb stem
~겠다 - no difference in vowel or consonant
Adjectives
Adjectives are not used in future tense as often as they are in English, but technically they would be conjugated exactly the same as verbs.
I will be happy: 나는 행복하겠다.
I will be hungry: 나는 배고프겠다.
있다 can be an adjective and a verb depending on how it is used.
Adjective: Indicates that someone has something, or that someone/thing is at a location
Verb: more complicated and will be explained a whole lot later, but remember for now it can be a verb
Since we are not getting to when it is a verb yet, we are not going into how to conjugate it in those cases. As an adjective though it is conjugated as other adjectives.
NOTE: Those of you who have done tenses before will maybe notice that I used a Future tense that is different from what you know. There IS a different Future tense, but we’ll get to that later since I try to follow the How to Study Korean lesson plan, I don’t want to mix things too much. I personally found it confusing that there are two ways to form the future and that they are not taught together, but I’ll try to trust the experience of the people at HTSK, so please be patient. :)
That’s it for today! Next time we will finally get to take a look at honorifics and using tenses with them. So until then try to practice the plain form and tenses, it’ll help when we get to the next step. Maybe you find some articles online and see if you can identify if they use this plan form or not and look at some dictionary form verbs and adjectives and try to conjugate through the plain form tenses. Because it’ll just get more and more brain-twisting from here on out, we want to make sure that we understand each step! Right? Right.
Until next time, stay awesome! 화이팅!
yousharknotpass
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